An earnest seeker should be deeply concerned each time he is confronted with his rebellious mind, with its lazy habits, instability, attachments, elusiveness, and slovenly ways of working. These he will have to study and try intelligently to contend with, both during his meditation and when he is engaged in doing his various spiritual … Read the rest >
On a meditation retreat several years ago, late one evening after the Dharma talk, a woman raised her hand and asked one last question: “Is enlightenment just a myth?” When we teachers went back to our evening meeting, we asked each other this question. We exchanged stories about the creative freedom of Ajahn Chah, … Read the rest >
(1) “If those who lead you say to you: ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky!’
then the birds of the sky will precede you.
(2) If they say to you: ‘It is in the sea,’
then the fishes will precede you.
(3) Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and outside of you.”… Read the rest >
As in a game of chess, the dying person sees at that fateful moment how every one of his actions unleashed a chain of events that made his life what it was as well as the turn it took, whether fruitful or sterile; he also sees in what manner and to what extent he … Read the rest >
To whatever person or object an aspirant, either consciously or unconsciously, allows his thoughts to drift and dwell upon, he is unknowingly connecting himself to that person or object. By so doing, he will subtly begin to receive certain impressions and feelings from these thoughts that will affect and color his being to a … Read the rest >
Sitting in zazen, I become nothing and everything become nothing, that is to say I and everything melt into One. So when I see a flower, the flower is I, when I see the moon, the moon is I. All things become I. There is no greater love than this.
Unfortunately, most people who have decided to start working on themselves are usually too impatient. They want to see ‘successes’ as soon as possible, otherwise they feel that Heaven hasn’t taken note of their efforts. It is a strange paradox: nobody objects to the long years of training and study which are necessary for … Read the rest >
So sannyas, or any other method of approach to God, employed by various seekers of Truth, is only a means by adopting which the soul seeks liberation from the thralldom of lust, greed, and wrath, and experiences the fullness and glory of its integral spiritual life and being. It is not by mere external … Read the rest >
I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Rajagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the Squirrels’ Sanctuary. Then the brahman Akkosaka Bharadvaja heard that a brahman of the Bharadvaja clan had gone forth from the home life into homelessness in the presence of the Blessed One. Angered & displeased, he went to the Blessed … Read the rest >
